Sustainability champion Eva Kruse is nothing if not a “stubborn optimist”. Before sustainability was even a buzzword in the fashion industry, Kruse was asking the difficult questions and imagining a better future. From being co-founder of the Copenhagen-based Global Fashion Agenda to her role with London-based company Pangaia, Kruse has always been one step ahead of the rest.
Sustainability champion Eva Kruse is nothing if not a “stubborn optimist”. Before sustainability was even a buzzword in the fashion industry, Kruse was asking the difficult questions and imagining a better future. From being co-founder of the Copenhagen-based Global Fashion Agenda to her role with London-based company Pangaia, Kruse has always been one step ahead of the rest.
Hi, I'm Glynis Trailnash and welcome to In Fashion. Long before sustainability was a buzzword for the fashion industry, Eva Cruz was its champion. Aware of the damaging but potentially transformative effects of the fashion industry on the environment and also its workers, Eva was starting a conversation back in 2007 that continues today. She was a founder of the Copenhagen based Global Fashion Agenda and Global Fashion Summit, and also That City's Fashion Week. Recently, she's moved into the commercial application of sustainability to work with the London based company Pangaea. As she explains, they're much more than a fashion brand and are putting some mind boggling scientific discoveries into action for our wardrobes. She is a font of knowledge, enthusiasm, and stubborn optimism. I hope you enjoy this episode of In Fashion.
GTN:eva, it's so wonderful to see you again here in London. And uh, it is really weird, isn't it? Because the last time we saw each other was literally the day the world changed. It was March 13, 2020, and we were in Melbourne at the fashion festival at the business seminar. And you were speaking, I was hosting and everything changed that day. It did. And at four o'clock we had our last speaker get on stage and get off and the chairman came on and shut the festival down. Everything got shut down and you were in town from Copenhagen at the
Eva:time. Yes, that's right. And we rushed to the airport and we caught the last train. One of the last flights going back to Europe. Yeah, so shortened our trip. We were supposed to go to Sydney. We were supposed to sort of explore Australia. I brought my husband. We're going to have so much fun, but yeah, it got stopped right there. And then we just had to rush back to the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. And it's,
GTN:it's, it's so strange, isn't it? When you look back now, because I think in that next year. Everyone thought from a fashion perspective, obviously, there were so many upheavals generally, but from a fashion perspective, there was such a sense of Change and hope. Yeah, and open letters from designers and everyone saying everything's gonna change. This is the catalyst we need How do you feel about where we're at at the
Eva:moment? Oh my god, what a tragic topic to open up But honestly, you're absolutely right there was so much Hope or yeah, sense of shifting the system, obviously also massive challenges. So if you can say if the industry had suffered from overproduction, huge inventories, marking down products, it just got accelerated because all physical retail basically shut down for so long and everybody sat on all that dead inventory. So. It definitely also put more pressure on the supply chain side of things. So if those who used to be exploited at some level, they really got abandoned. You know, if you think about the workers and, the supply chain overall, especially in the global South. So I think actually problems accelerated and even if we were thinking, Oh, could this be sort of a new energy and booster into maybe less excessive shows and less traveling and maybe less seasons and maybe Sort of more consistency and sort of shifting. And there was this group called the rewiring fashion, which was very inspiring and talking about prolonging the shelf life for product and not marking down and not pushing spring products into the market already in November, pressuring the perfectly good products that were fit for the season into sort of markdowns and sales and stuff. Yeah, but it didn't happen. It just didn't. It didn't. We bounced back as quick as we could and went back into the same cycle. And you would think, you know, done with influencers who shift clothes three times a day for photo ops and that whole shebang. No, we weren't. Somebody weren't done with it apparently. There's still. Cravings and a need for it, and of course the entertainment value of it. And I guess, at the time I was hosting the Global Fashion Summit and the Global Fashion Agenda, and being a host of a physical convening, we did for two years also test out formats digitally. It doesn't give you the same either. So I think in that sense, we appreciate that humans are social beings and we actually like to meet and we like to be seen and touched and you know, you don't get emotionally as moved online. Yeah, as you do when you sit in a room and listen to people, meet them in person and so on. So I guess that side of things, I appreciate that we do need to have that. I wish we would have grabbed the opportunity to actually do something with the whole rotten way our system is built and how it fuels the overproduction, overconsumption, which our planet is just struggling so much with surviving under. Yeah. And
GTN:I mean, if it doesn't take a global pandemic, what does it
Eva:take? It's a good question. Good question. I mean, we have to tackle it from within, I guess. Because we're probably fundamentally not going to, tackle the need to consume, the desire to consume or the desire to want new things. And, I guess with growing middle classes, who are we in the global north to sort of tell them to not want and have the same, you know, benefits and goods that we do. So I think it's really about the industry making the product better. It has to be solved from there. We do also, I think everyone needs to consider how much more new we need and, you know, what kind of new. Could it be something somebody else has worn or had? Yeah. Just staying in the fashion space still, right? And then considering sort of having more of an organic wardrobe where things go in and out. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think there's some. Thoughts that could inspire new ways of consuming, but we'll probably never sort of stop consumption, which we also shouldn't because of the economic development and prosperity and getting people out of poverty so I think in that sense, yeah, it's about finding the right balance.
GTN:Absolutely. Now you have had such a stellar career in so many different ways. I mean, you started in media and then moved into fashion. you were a co founder of Copenhagen Fashion Week. Firstly, I'm curious as to how that transition happened. Cause that's quite an unusual one.
Eva:The transition from media. Yeah. I started in TV actually, and then did that for a number of years and I had also a fashion show. It's like a lifestyle show, but also a fashion show. And I think that's how I got sort of into the industry. And then it transitioned into, magazine media as editor in chief of a couple of different publications. So I had my feet sort of in that space of the fashion industry and knew everyone. And then at the time in the early 2000s, we didn't have a proper fashion week in Copenhagen. We had a trade show week where we had actually a significant number of buyers coming. I'd rather call it maybe, was the fourth or fifth largest export economy of Denmark. Wow. And we had a couple of brands that could define this fashion and more in the years to follow, because of course it also fuels an industry to then have an actual platform to showcase. And, you know, benchmark yourself against the bigger ones, New York, Paris and Milan and London. so we didn't really have a proper fashion week and we didn't have a network organization. We didn't have much communication across. We didn't sort of talk about how do we grow and actually create a competency cluster out of the Danish industry. So that was what's. And I was part of a little initiation group who started those conversations and that led to the shaping of the Danish Fashion Institute, which later became Global Fashion Agenda. And then, we built, Copenhagen Fashion Weeks, turned it into a proper. platform with one way shows and also public program with festivals and shopping and all of that. And then we also started hosting seminars and conferences for the industry to sort of bring people into the light on different topics we felt were important. One of them was what was called CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, back in 2007. And there was a lot of hesitancy on that topic in those days. One thing, we didn't have any assessments. We didn't know the impact of the industry. We knew the industry had issues with chemicals. We knew there was issues around child labor. Many businesses in the global north, at least, had outsourced their production in the seventies and eighties. In particular, the eighties, it sort of moved away from local production in Europe and so on. And then most of them worked through agents, so they actually didn't know their suppliers. So they had maybe visibility to first tier, second tier, that's it. So they couldn't answer a lot of the questions, which also created a little bit of sort of hesitancy and scare around, you know, how loud are you going to be around this topic and what do we call it? So most of it was closed door conversations. And then Copenhagen was going to host the UN Climate Summit in 2009, COP 15. This year we're at COP 28, and it's going to be held in Dubai, but COP 15 was being hosted. It was actually a bit of a flop cop from a political sense, what the Danish government managed to pull through. But in any case, it came to my attention. I, we looked at who, what industries are sort of supporting climate agenda like this. At this moment in time, it wasn't a big one in a public space. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 and was maybe one of the first moments that it created a public awareness around climate changes. And yeah, the conversation started. We didn't see it much sort of covered in broader public media, not in fashion either. I remember the, Vanity Fair had a green issue, and all the celebrities were dressed in green clothes, the color green, not necessarily sustainable. So that's how, that's where it was at that time, 2006, 2007, stuff like that. And then the UN climate summit was, was sort of the pivoting point to set up the global fashion summit, then called the Copenhagen fashion summit at the first edition. And, uh, yeah, say, why don't we pull together the global industry and discuss where we are and where we should go. And we put out a 10 year plan of action together with business for social responsibility. And we have the carings then called PPR and, you know, a squirrel group, big manufacturing group from China and Novozymes and incredible enzyme company, New Power Solutions and H& M and, you know, many of the players who are still super active today. And that became, yeah, the start of a, of a long journey.
GTN:Yeah, but like you say, it was very early in the conversation because really, I always sort of put it, the date really is 2013, you know, when Rana Plaza happened and, and obviously that was a human rights issue, but it, it sparked all of these other things that all the issues around fashion, including sustainability. And that is always to me where that big conversation started. So to be so far ahead of the game is. Very prescient. I mean, what was it that drove you to
Eva:do that? I think, I mean, some of it was films like Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, but some of it is definitely also my upbringing. I have two amazing, very politically engaged, socialists for parents who has always taught me to... Take an active role and be part of the conversation and never just sit back. And I think when I approached the fashion industry, they were a little bit like, Oh, really? Is that really what you want to spend your time? not understanding probably from their point of view, the impact of this industry. So now we know it's one of the world's largest industries. It's one of the world's most impactful when it comes to sort of social indicators, cultural indicators, it influences so many moods in society. Apart from what we wear, and it's one of the most impactful because it's so large and it has such massive social and environmental impact on the planet. Yeah, and in every country. And in every country. So if the fashion industry changes a little bit, it actually impacts a lot. And I had this thing in my head that if we could change fashion. We could change everything because if that industry of all industries, which is sort of synonymous with everything else that is not sustainable, the need for purple, you know, or a waistline, uh, yeah. And then another month later you need green, right? So that's that whole fueling, something that my parents would probably categorize as superficial. Right. Which in a sense is right, but it's also part of entertainment and it's culture. And it's, it's also part of, being social beings. And, you know, I'm looking at you with your beautiful red hair and you're making a statement and you're going into the world with. So how you dress and how you appear. So yeah, it's putting color to our lives and it makes us belong in groups or not belong and, you know, separate or be part of. And so I think it has much more to it than just consumption and it's got very artistic designers who create, you know, art pieces as well and things that are really aesthetically stimulating. So I think it has a lot more to offer, but really it has this ability to impact, to impact moods and influence. movements in societies, it influences policy and if it does those like incremental steps, like changes how it produces what it does, it can actually impact the planet quite tremendously. So I really thought it was an interesting industry to start with. Um, yeah.
GTN:And did you, did you realize at that point just how deep it
Eva:goes like no, I think I thought we could do it a bit quicker With more effect. I mean if I look back and we just had the global fashion summit, I still serve on the board and it's great to see everybody come together and how the sustainability family is growing however, some of the narratives are not developing much. And if I look at, you know, the percentage of organic cotton in the global market, it's less than 1%. Wow. Yeah. I mean, the recycled cotton has increased. Much more, but it's just, I'm like, well, you know, we've been at this for almost 15 years and we're still, that's still where we are. so that can, you know, sometimes make me feel a little bit like, like a blow in the stomach, but we just have to keep going, I guess. And a little bit like we talked about with COVID where we met in March 20, how if we had known how long COVID would take. It would have been very difficult to get through, but if you don't, just take it day by day and it's a little bit the same like, you know, focus, get the work done, you know, and then if people had told me where we would be 10, 15 days down the road, I probably not sure would have started the journey or how difficult it would be to penetrate, how many struggles we would face, but when you don't know, you just go at it. Yeah. Yeah.
GTN:Yeah, I, I think naivety in a lot of ways
Eva:is a really good thing. Yeah. And hope. Hope and optimism. And I'm a very stubborn optimist.
GTN:I really am. That's a good way to be. Yeah.
Eva:That's a very good way to be. It's not my phrase. It's Christiana Figueres. She and Tom Rivett has a platform called Stubborn Optimism, but I just completely relate to that term. Oh, I love it. Being a stubborn optimist.
GTN:It's a choice. It is, and it's a good choice. Um, do you feel that, like in terms of when you see new brands coming through, and obviously it seems in Australia certainly that a lot of the new brands coming through, it's just part of the way they build their businesses now. Sustainable aspects into it. Is that something that you're seeing globally?
Eva:Yeah. Yeah. I think most new brands, at least the ones that I stumble upon, they, it looks like it's sort of in embedded and it should be, and I think it's actually one of the sentences we had. I mean, we had the, if you can change fashion, you can change everything. And then we had, we want sustainability to be fashion's new normal. And when it's the new normal, we should stop having conversations about it. It should just be there a given. Unfortunately, we still need to have those conversations. I always wished for the summit to become obsolete for those conveners to not have to exist because it's just being done. Unfortunately, that's not where we are yet, but it's nice to see that the next generation is sort of embracing it. But if we look at the total global market, there's probably about 40, maybe even 50 percent of the industry that are not moving at all. Really? Yeah. Wow.
GTN:Yeah. Just
Eva:not engaged with it. Not, not really doing much apart from what we see with legislation and that's why policy is really critical because there are going to be the ones who are not, you know, the willing. Who, who will do it and go above and beyond, but who still just, have short term incentives, just wanna make the most margins. Yeah. And it's unfortunately still a good business model to overproduce and mark down your product. Yeah. And completely scrutinize the whole system. Who do you think
GTN:governmentally speaking in the world is leading on this?'cause the French are quite active in on this. Australia's trying to get there. It's not quite there, but
Eva:Yeah. And I mean, New Zealand you had, they had a great prime Minister who stepped down, but yeah, let's see where she goes. Could be interesting to follow. But yeah, I think Australia, and also when I was visiting Australia, I met with some amazing people from some of the governments in, in Melbourne who look deep into also circularity for textiles and so on. And we do need a systemic change and it does require all parties to play a role. And I don't think we can put it on the consumers. They're not going to stamp their feet in the stores and demand better products. They're still going to buy. Product first, does it make me look good? I'm going out on Saturday, you know, does it fit? Is that the right price? And then somewhere down the line, they were interested, of course, whether it's made well, but I think convenience and price and product and all of that will always come first. And who can blame them? I mean, I even look at my daughter and her shopping patterns. I, I can't even say that she, even though I should have infused her with all the right incentives, she's still also buying. Product convenience and price, and looking good, of course. So I think I'm very proud actually currently of the EU because yesterday they just passed the nature restoration law with a marginal win, but it got declined a couple of weeks ago and now it's been modified and now it actually came through and that means preserving biodiversity and nature and putting. Percentages and regulation into how much diversity, forest and fields and whatnot must have. And yeah, it's a big step for nature. And, and I think in the whole equation of discussing climate, we're missing out on nature. It's not just about lowering emissions. It's also about that. But if we don't start looking at how we treat. Land, soil, forests, biodiversity, bees and pollinators, all of that, we're not going to get there. And I actually think that's one thing that I met when I visited Australia and only were there for a few days, but you met people who were connected to nature in a different way than we are in Europe. Oh really? Yeah. And people, there was these praises also of the indigenous voices and sort of a connection. Yeah, I think your people feels closer to nature on a daily basis than people who live on bricks here in Europe. That's interesting. That's nice to hear. And I do think we need to come back to a sense of humans being a part of nature, not apart from nature. And that we're just species and we're completely dependent on a healthy ecosystem. I mean, for the crops and things we enjoy on a daily basis. but also just because we're just a part of it. And we can't control it.
GTN:So how prevalent is greenwashing still today? I mean, we talk about it, but is it a huge issue for consumers?
Eva:I mean, with increasing legislation on greenwashing, I think it's because it's been flagged that it has become an issue. in the early days when we started the sustainability journey, we encouraged companies to speak about even the little things. Because if we didn't start talking about how things are different, how two products that looks the same are different because of the material input, for instance, came into it. If we don't talk about even the little things. How are consumers ever going to be able to navigate it? And then of course it came to a point of where every, where people are talking about it and maybe using The wrong phrases like calling something made of plastic vegan Which is true in a sense. It hasn't got any animal input But it's it sounds like it's a good thing when it's vegan So I would say those kind of exploitations and I think we also need to come A little closer to the granularity of things. So what is the input in recycled? Because something can be recycled plastic bottles. That is actually not the best thing. It's taking plastic bottles out of a supply chain where they could stay plastic bottles. So they shouldn't be turned into a garment. But there can be other... Post consumer or post industrial waste streams of, of plastic that can be turned into recycled polyester. So I think more transparency in that is needed. but if the legislation disencourages companies to talk about what they do, it's going to be less attractive to sort of invest in sustainability. And, for consumers to understand and navigate the space. So it's a little bit of a mixed base, I think, the whole legislation on greenwashing, but of course there's always some that just jumps on the bandwagon and makes a small capsule of something and then the rest of what they do is just completely conventional, yeah.
GTN:How hard do you think it is for consumers to see through it though? Like how do they navigate through it?
Eva:I think consumers try to navigate, there's a few concepts that they understand. I think recycled, organic, vintage, you know, there's a couple of them. but I think there's a lot of them, a lot of the nuances in it that they don't. And sometimes the story that you need to explain is also so long that you lose people, even before you get fully started. And I mean, we experienced that here at Pangaea as well, where some of our materials are very scientific and they require quite a lot of explanation. So how do you actually make it exciting still and not lose people along the way? So each of our materials, for instance, have an LCA, a life cycle assessment, which is 13 different. Markers or indicators that goes into that assessment, but we only disclose three of them online because we know people aren't gonna Spend the time to read all 13, but if they ask they can get access to it, but it's really about finding the right balance I would wish for consumers to care more for it and actually spend that little effort of knowing what goes into your products. because it does matter a whole lot, the biggest environmental impact of the whole apparel fashion. sector is the material input. So the material processing and manufacturing of the fabrics. Yeah. Yeah.
GTN:Which, as you mentioned, you're at Pangaea, you're the, chief global engagement officer, And you've been with them for two years now. Yeah. A bit over two years. Yeah. what. Attracted you to a company like Pangaea given that you know, you've achieved all these things in Copenhagen Now you've moved to London where we are today. what made you go, yeah, that's a company I want to work for?
Eva:So I had a, had a soft entry to the business as an advisor on the sideline as it was finding its feet and it Pangaea is actually a material science company. So we're a brand but we're also rooted on this notion that through the right material Science and innovation. We can actually solve a lot of the issues that is facing our industry and really we're driven by a mission to want to create industry transformation. And the brand was actually created just to showcase the material science, to prove that you can actually do it and turn it into beautiful products. Because again, back to consumption and people wanting to buy things that looks good or makes them feel good and makes them look good and so on. So I think design and making things attractive is equally important in that equation when we're in the space of, of apparel or fashion. So I was following that on the sidelines and because the company is rooted on this notion of wanting to transform and, build a new way of creating production and consumption and, input to the industry and this bigger mission of wanting to become what we call earth positive, which means Essentially that we strived to make more positive impact than negative with all of the work and the products that we create, that just felt like the right place. Nothing before that has felt that way. Because I
GTN:imagine you've probably had a few offers.
Eva:I've had a look at different things, but this felt like the right level of mission and vision and purpose. And, of course, it's still a commercial business. And I thought that was also interesting for me to move from nonprofit NGO and to corporate to learn about those mechanisms. And because I also appreciate that. A lot of this is not going to fly if it isn't profitable, you know, if it, and, and that's the same, of course, we also need to sell products to sustain our business, to have people like myself working on our global engagement and how we make our impact bigger and, um, also how we invest in, Solutions to drive material innovation that can actually completely transform our industry. so Pangaea, apart from having the brand, we also have a large part of the team that actually works as consultants. So we sell our solutions to other businesses. We help them unlock their journey. We advise them. We can even help them strategize, but we can also unfold areas like. Dyes or alternatives to leather or whatever, you know, so there's a big side of the business where we capitalize on everything that we've tested and tried and yeah, where we can share that with others. So the mission is still really big, even though when you Google the, it looks like, we were just selling, amazing active wear and, and leisure wear and outerwear. but it, it has a much bigger. Yeah,
GTN:On the materials, I mean, when I was going on the deep dive on the website the other day, it's fascinating. Yeah, it is, right? Like, you've got bacteria dyes and recycled cashmere, that seems actually like the more basic sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Then you've got flower down, which is like a filler for puffer jackets and things. But made from wildflowers and other things.
Eva:And, you know, collaborations with incredible innovations like, Spiber, which is a mimicking spider silk and, Infinidat fiber that is actually a hundred percent post, consumer waste and recycled materials and fruit and plant fiber, which comes from waste streams from, agriculture and food industries and, We had a collaboration with an incredible company called 12, where we created sunglasses made from air carbon. Yeah, so they actually extract something that we've got too much of, turn it into a material that you can create. of, and we also had a collection of products where the print was made with something called air ink, which is also air pollution turned into an ink. So again, here looking at how can we take problems and turn them into solutions and then make beautiful products out of it. So it's just really, really exciting. And it's, some of it is feels like blue sky thinking, but then it actually turns into actual products. Right.
GTN:And two types of denim.
Eva:Yes, from nettle and hemp, that's actually also a beautiful social initiative with the harvesting of the nettle, which is being done in Himalaya and engaging a local community of women that harvests the nettle and it turns into an incredible fiber that can be blended with cotton and makes an incredible denim. Yeah.
GTN:What's interesting, I guess, to me is that the product is what one might consider basics. It's t shirts and tracksuits and active wear, as you say, it's denim. It's that kind of thing. Was that a very deliberate? It
Eva:is a deliberate, I mean, we make products for a reason, not a season. Another great tagline, but it's a, it's a key point because actually that's also why we don't really like to be described as fashion. We know our items can, you can make them look fashionable and we have a lot of people who look really chic and cool in them, but if it's seasonality driven, it's still going back to the same. You know, since that we initiated this conversation around, did we ever change anything during COVID? You know, could we, we could have changed the system of sort of the seasonality and the constant, pursuit for new and things going out of style, but we didn't, but we try to just do it and live it. And that doesn't mean that we don't want to deliver newness and we don't want to sometimes position it, you know, in fashionable ways, but it still is a pretty basic offering and it fits anybody and everybody and I think the styles also good for any body type. So yeah, it is, it is more democratic fashion you can say.
GTN:We love democratic fashion. And also I do love that you have all the little... The text blocks information on there.
Eva:Yes. So that's our signature. You can say copied by men in art by now but Unfortunately, sometimes they copy us and then they didn't they don't write anything important and you're like, that's the whole point Please copy. I mean copy but then tell us what this is made of and make an effort in making it in something, that's made better for the planet.
GTN:And so it's basically telling us what the t shirt is made of and how it's dyed.
Eva:Again, back to, you know, how do you engage the consumer really? How do people who buy the product actually understand and appreciate what they're wearing? So we put it outside the product to make it part of the brand. Yeah.
GTN:I love that. and in terms of the dying processes that you use, what, what are some of the techniques that you're using there that are better for everyone?
Eva:Well, I mean, some of the chemical outputs in the wastewater from the industry is just really horrendous. So we've been looking at many different ways of making natural dyes. And then you mentioned also the bacteria dyes, which is quite exciting. So combining bacteria and. I can't even tell you how they're mixed up. but we have some brilliant scientists who can give you much more on that one. Um, can turn into incredible colors. So the whole process uses less water, less energy, and the output isn't harmful. So yeah, really exciting. But we also do some peppermint treatments of the fabric. So they need Needless wash. Okay. Keeps the odor down. Refreshing on every level. Yeah. And we also, yeah, we don't pre wash the products. Um, they shrink a bit when people, then wash them themselves, but we encourage washing less as well. Um, but again, it's about saving water and saving energy. Yeah. There's
GTN:so much of when we talk about the impact of clothing on the planet, so much of it is in fact, after people have bought
Eva:it, isn't it? Yeah, a large percentage of the footprint sits there, obviously. And really also how much you use it and wear it. You know, how many wears is it, or should you then rather pass it on if you don't use it anymore? I think we have a lot of products, all of us, including myself in my team. Closet that I don't use, which is just dead product. I mean, there's also these pieces that you keep for a slimmer day, right? I'm going to keep these and hope I fit them in a year. Yeah. Never happens. But, um, yeah, no.
GTN:And how how do you get people to change habits? Teaching consumers how to look after clothing once they've bought it is still so important, isn't it?
Eva:Yeah, it's that's that's a really challenging part I think you need to give them the right incentives So if there is an advantage by doing it if you save money and water and you keep You know, collars longer, things last longer. I mean, you need to teach people about what they gain from it. I think many people, when they're asked, they would say that they care for the environment, that they care about climate change, that they, would like to buy sustainable products, but at the end of the day, they only do it if it fits their needs, their wallet, if it's easy. The same, I think, for recycling. Which in England is actually made quite efficiently for the consumer because most of it goes into the same bin and then they sort it, I hope, but I don't know how much trust people have in it, but at least in Denmark, it's very complicated. You need a bin for each different thing. Your kitchen is a mess full of bins, so things like that just, I think, yeah, restrains people from, from actually doing it, but textile. Sorting I haven't really fully seen Rolled out. But I think a lot of the solutions. Even the ones that Pangaea is offering on the innovation side, they need to come to scale before they can also come to a price point that's accessible for more. And that's the same for a lot of the recycled fibers. There's a lot of opportunity in it. And science is following along because one issue and it becomes maybe a bit technical, but if you grind and. If you grind the fiber too many times, it becomes too short to actually spin a thread. Right. But now there's new technology in place that can actually keep the length of a fiber, which also for the wools and the cashmeres can keep the softness and so on. So I think eventually, we'll come to a state where we actually can recycle things over and over and over, potentially endlessly. And therefore, you know, instead of focusing on virgin materials, we should definitely really look into the potential of the recycled materials. For cotton and some of those other, products, if virgin materials should still come into place and the same for animal fibers, they should be regenerative, which is taking the organic side further. It's not only about pesticides, it's also about how you Till the soil and how you found the land and how you have different cover crops and how you secure, more diversity in the crops and not monocropping and protecting the overall health of the natural ecosystem around it as well. So that's also what Pangaea is investing in. So sometimes it's super high tech and you know what we call high tech naturalists, but we also have very down to earth, you know, looking at farming and how can we source differently and it's very close to. Biodiversity and soil and nature. And speaking of biodiversity, my biggest new initiative that we're cooking is a coalition around bees, bees and pollinators. Yeah. I'm using bees and pollinators basically as the poster child or the pinup for the bigger biodiversity agenda because biodiversity, what does that mean and how did that, how does that relate to me? And when you say it's nature and the natural world, you're like, yeah, okay, the park or what? You know, so I think to connect humans more to nature, if we look at the magic work of the pollinators, all of the many things that we surround ourselves with on a daily basis that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for them and they're in decline. As is nature and biodiversity and the way we're losing them is exactly also because of the monoculture, cropping, the farming principles, pesticides use, you know, over exploitation of nature and soil and land and so on. So I think, yeah, that we want to raise more awareness to that. And are currently in dialogue with many, many different businesses about joining us on the mission and want to launch the coalition at COP. In December in Dubai. Oh,
GTN:and you're also putting, about to put bees on the roof here, I
Eva:believe. Yes, we are. Yeah. We've, we've been supporting bees since 2020, so it's not a new deal for us, but it's to scale it and make it bigger and have actual global impact, we need to align ourselves with others. So that's the global engagement. Part of the job. And what
GTN:are your hopes for Pangaea as a global force?
Eva:Well, I really hope that, we can use the Position we've created so far to lead by example, by really inspiring others and getting others to come along. So we go into the world with a less competitive sort of mindset, but really a collaborative mindset. And fortunately the phone is ringing. Which is good. So people are interested in learning from our experiences and working collaboratively, but really that's what we wanna achieve, that in the bigger industry transformation. And we see it as a solution to come from within the industry to create better products, and to work with the development of the materials and the products themselves, so that we don't have to stop consumption or development and enjoy, you know, beautiful, exciting products, but that we can do that with, guilt free, guilt free products.
GTN:That would be nice, wouldn't it? and In your mind, what does the ideal future of fashion look like?
Eva:Oh, that's a big one. What does it look like? Well, I mean, If we were at a place where most fibers were circular, where most materials were better for the planet than if we weren't making them, we could live in a world of abundance, right? And if we were also able to protect the people in the supply chain, and make products that lasts and has value. I mean, I think it would be good for the fashion industry to stop the vicious cycle of marking down and always hunting for the lowest denominator. And I appreciate that it's definitely not every wallet in the world that can afford luxury brands, even premium brands like Pangaea. so we do need cheaper offers or vintage offers or in other ways. So it's, it's every. Product range and every price point and it needs to be better. But the marking down, I think is such a vicious, vicious cycle. And it's also about devaluing, you know, you devalue the product. If it's always on sale and you know, what's the value of it? I think we buy things with more care when we choose more wisely and spend a little more and buy less. Yeah. Um, yeah, I would hope that people would buy better and, um. Care for it more.
GTN:And what, what gets you out of bed in the morning? What
Eva:drives you? The bees currently. No, seriously. I mean, really the nature agenda. I think we've neglected as humans, the connectivity we have to nature and how we are just part of it. but we, we tend to forget that. And then of course, I think my stubborn optimism that, you know, even when I sometimes go to bed thinking, oh, we're not going to make it. And are we even reaching tipping points now? we see it in cities like New York currently or in, you know, it's coming closer and closer to the societies that we relate to when we live in this part of the world. I mean, the wildfire fires in Australia, that was, you know, millions of animals were killed and land and, you know, the lungs of the world being I think it's a very scary moment in time. It's also a very exciting moment in time because we actually still have. The hand on the turnkey. I'm worried that we're not turning it enough and that those in power are not, willing to do it, and that short term incentives and greed, to be honest, is driving more of it. But I, yeah, I wake up every morning thinking, at least we need, we got to try. We can't just lean back and hope that things will be better. You know, we just, we just have to get at it and just keep trying.
GTN:Well, I'm always glad to know that yours is one of the hands on the drink.
Eva:Eva, Eva, it has
GTN:been an absolute treat to see you again. And thank you so much for joining us today. Thank
Eva:you for coming to Pangaea. Thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends and on social media and rate and review on your podcast platform of choice. You can get in touch via Instagram at infashion underscore podcast. Thanks again for listening until next time.